“God’s Word calls Satan “the god of this age”. He leverages a tremendous asset when he is on his home court. However, he is much too cunning to depend solely on closed countries, undiscovered people groups, the persecution of believers, and cultures hostile to the gospel. He employs other strategies to deter the advancement of God’s kingdom inside the Christian community to hinder believers and churches from ever deploying to vast pockets of lostness around the world.

In trying to convince Christians that missions is optional, he diverts churches to focus on their own programs and to see their mission as reaching people for their own church. If he can persuade Christians that reaching the nations has no relevancy or urgency to their own life, he has raised a barrier that makes other barriers obsolete. Who, then, will be willing to leave their own comfort and security to take the gospel and declare God’s salvation to the peoples of the world?”

Ed Stetzer, from “Spiritual Warfare and Missions; The Battle For God’s Glory Among the Nations”